Under the Starry Sky
by Honigkuchenpferdchen
Summary: ... at an early hour in the morning where children normally aren't awake, young Kinshiro and Atsushi go to see a meteor shower. [takes place before and after the flashback scene at the beginning of Episode 4]


**A/N: I'm normally not someone who exploits scenes which appear in the original work, however, when I found the following prompt which goes perfectly with this scene I just couldn't resist to write this. Basically pointless fluff though.  
**

**The prompt can be found on "OTP-Prompts" and reads like this: "****Imagine your OTP waking up at an absurd hour of the night/morning to watch a meteor shower."**

* * *

"I'm definitely not going to sleep tonight!"

Atsushi rolled over and supported his upper body with his forearms so that he could look at Kinshiro, who laid only a few centimetres away from him. Still, in the dark room, he could only recognize his silhouette, or rather the shape of his head because the rest of him was already wrapped up in his bedroll. His eyes were closed, but he opened them again.

"I won't either," he answered, turning his head to beam at Atsushi. "Sleep is something we can get tomorrow as much as we want anyway because of the holidays."

"Even if your mother told us again to sleep, I'm far too excited to do so," Atsushi added. Kinshiro nodded eagerly.

They were silent for a few seconds, until he started struggling and kicked the bedroll off.

"It's too warm for this!" he complained, but the smile remained on his face.

Atsushi grinned back. "See, I told you so."

They could hear the cicadas from outside through the half-opened window that was supposed to help them getting some slightly cooler air, although up to this point they didn't feel like anything had changed. On the other side of the room, an alarm clock glowed, displaying the time. Kinshiro shoot a glance at it.

"It still takes so long till we have to get up," he remarked.

"We can tell stories to pass time," Atsushi suggested and stretched himself. "How about some ghost stories?"

Kinshiro shivered uncomfortable. "At-chan…" he began quietly.

Atsushi started giggling. "Come on, Kin-chan, I'm joking of course. I know you don't like ghost stories, so I won't tell one. Not even the one about the scary lady who hides under your bed and when you're asleep…"

"At-chan!" Kinshiro shouted, jolting up, his face pale. He looked at Atsushi reproachfully who just resumed to giggle. "Stop that," he said, not fully able to suppress a whine.

Trying to catch his breath, Atsushi at least managed to make sounds that sounded like "Sorry, sorry."

They were interrupted by a soft knock on the door. "Boys," a calm voice said on the other side of it, making Kinshiro and Atsushi fall silent, "you have to get up again in a few hours. You should try to sleep as much as you can now."

"Okay, Mom," Kinshiro spoke up. As he laid down again, they heard footsteps going away.

After a moment, Kinshiro turned towards Atsushi, a hand covering his mouth. "We have to be quiet," he whispered.

Atsushi whispered back, "Yeah, but if we do, she won't notice we are still awake, right?"

"Right," Kinshiro answered. They both smiled again at each other.

* * *

"Kinshiro… Kinshiro… Wake up…!"

Kinshiro heard the soft voice of his father before the jarring sound of the alarm clock. He had no idea where he was and what was happening. It took him a few seconds until he was able to comprehend the situation he was in. His vision was blurry when he sat up, he had to blink a few times for it to clear. The first thing he was truly aware of was the fact that he was _tired_. Indistinctly, he felt a source of warmth next to him and was able to recognize it as Atsushi. His father was now muttering and shaking Atsushi in an attempt to make him get up. The alarm clock was still ringing because no one had bothered to turn it off.

Finally, Atsushi seemed to wake up as well, he sat up too to rub the sleep out of his eyes. "What's the matter?" he asked confused.

The alarm clock was really ticking Kinshiro off, but before he could try to make it shut up, a soft hand was placed on his shoulder. "You two really have to get up if you want to watch the meteor shower, honey."

This eventually rang a bell deep inside Kinshiro's mind and pulled him out of his dazed state. Atsushi immediately was wide awake. "That's right, the meteor shower! Kin-chan, we have to hurry, otherwise we're going to miss it." He examined the night sky through the window with an anxious look as if he believed they were already too late.

While Kinshiro struggled to his feet and his father finally took care of the annoying alarm clock, his mother already headed for the chair the boys had used to place the clothes on they had worn the other day. "Just get dressed into these," she ordered them. "It is warm enough outside for clothes with short sleeves. Father will drive you two to the hill outside of the town."

Kinshiro nodded eagerly. He was fully awake now too and couldn't wait to finally see the meteor shower he and Atsushi had promised to watch together. Because it just happened to be during the holidays, both of their parents had agreed to let them have a sleepover before and go stargazing with them in the early morning.

"We somehow ended up asleep in the end, huh?" Atsushi mumbled while slipping into his trousers.

"Yeah," Kinshiro responded regretfully. His mother was just combing his hair roughly with a few strokes of his comb. He tried to remember when exactly that had been. He still recalled them hiding beneath a blanket – despite the heat –, illuminating their faces with a flashlight and talking, feeling like they were actually camping outside. Maybe that was also the reason they had laid so close to each other when they woke up. On the other hand, Kinshiro was pretty sure there had been something after them talking inside their "tent", but no matter how hard he tried, he didn't seem to remember.

"Hurry up, Kin-chan!" Atsushi shouted, his hand already on the door knob as Kinshiro was just about to put his shirt on. When he had finished, he ran after Atsushi, who had headed for the front door. He didn't see the smile anymore his parents exchanged back in his room before his father followed them.

Atsushi slipped his shoes on and ripped open the front door. He took a few steps outside and tilted his head back. "There're no clouds at all!" he exclaimed delighted.

"We're really lucky," Kinshiro, who now stood beside him, also looking at the sky, added, his face shining as brightly as Atsushi's with anticipation.

They dashed to the car of Kinshiro's father and waited impatiently for him to exit the house as well. As soon as the car was unlocked, they crawled onto the back seat and fastened their seatbelts.

"You know it is an exception for you to be allowed to ride the car without a booster seat?" Kinshiro's father reminded them after he had seated himself.

"Just start driving already," Kinshiro demanded in a slightly rude tone, but his thoughts were too occupied with their plans to be able to think about behaving well now. He had chosen to sit in the unofficial seat in the middle of the car rather than at the other window and so he had to look over Atsushi's shoulder to be able to catch a glimpse of the sky. His father started the car and drove off. Faint music was coming out of the radio and the humming of the engine and the rotating of the wheels dinned more than usual because of the almost quiet streets. Even though the meteor shower was an extraordinary phenomenon, most people were asleep at the current hour.

The noise became even louder when Atsushi decided to wind down the window, resulting in the airstream howling in their ears. Atsushi stuck his head completely out of the window. "Look!" he called out and started to point out and name several stellar constellations. Kinshiro squirmed and shifted in his seat in order to follow Atsushi's pointed finger, but most of the time his gaze lay on his friend's excited face.

The way to the hill they wanted to reach to see the meteor shower well wasn't too long as they reached to main road leading out of the town in no time due to the low traffic. From there, they joined the highway which connected their town and the next. It was surrounded by a forest and beyond that there were fields and hills. Even though it wasn't far anymore, by now, Atsushi and Kinshiro were quiet, peering into the darkness, wanting to spot the place where they would stop. The atmosphere was charged with impatience, the fact that it was dark inside the car because of the big trees preventing the light from illuminating the interior only added to it. "We're probably not going to make it in time," Atsushi whispered into the silence. Neither Kinshiro nor his father responded.

The car stopped at the roadside, surprising both of the boys. "You can't park here," Kinshiro remarked.

"I know," his father answered, "that's why you two will get out here and go up the hill by yourselves and I will drive the car to the car park."

Their faces lit up. "Really?" Atsushi asked while Kinshiro exclaimed, "Thank you so much!"

"Just don't wander off to far, only go up the hill!" Kinshiro's father called after them after they had quickly unfasted their seatbelts and got out of the car.

"We will," Kinshiro replied and shut the door. He took a few steps backwards when the car started and drove off again. A tight grip fastened around his wrist.

"Come on!" Atsushi had already turned away from the road and began running up the hill, dragging Kinshiro along with him. They reached the top and flopped down in the grass.

* * *

Even after it was obvious that no more shooting stars would appear that night, the two of them didn't get up in a while, simply enjoying the feeling of the soft grass beneath them and their presences next to each other.

Eventually though, Kinshiro got up and took Atsushi's hand, giving it a tug to make him get up as well. "We should go back to look for my father," he suggested, seemingly a bit nervous because his father hadn't shown up during the whole meteor shower.

However, as it turned out when they returned to the place where they had been let out of the car, there was no reason for him to worry as his father was waiting there for them.

"When I reached the car park, the stars had already started falling, so I watched the meteor shower from there," he explained and let them enter the car again.

This time, it was quieter in the car than it had been on the way there. Although Atsushi still made a few tries to make conversation, it was plainly visible that now that their excitement had died down, all that was left was exhaustion.

"It was really fun tonight, wasn't it? Kin-chan?" Atsushi asked in a muffled voice.

"Hm," Kinshiro affirmed, nearly inaudible.

"We should do this again soon. Well, not watching meteor showers, because we can't influence when they will show up, but having a sleepover like that. And that time, we will definitely stay up all night!"

"Hm." Whether deliberately or not, Kinshiro's head sank on Atsushi's shoulder and he was barely able to keep his eyes open. Then, he suddenly seemed to remember something and raised his voice a little bit. "Thank you for doing all this for us," he said, directed towards his father. "Mother too. She stayed up the whole time as well, didn't she?"

"Oh, you're right. Thank you for letting me stay over and driving us."

"Don't worry about it, it's no big deal," Kinshiro's father denied.

When they fell silent once more, they heard Kinshiro breathing evenly. Through the driving mirror, Kinshiro's father could see that his son's eyes were closed now and his head was still on the shoulder of his best friend, who in return watched him with a gentle smile on his lips.

The next time he took a look into this mirror, there were two boys asleep on the backseat of the car.

* * *

**A/N: I probably made Kinshiro's family a lot less rich than they actually are. Oh well, I confess I just wanted to have caring parents.**

**Please feel free to point out all mistakes you come across.**


End file.
